Rawlings: A threat to Democracy?
Since he was voted out of power, Rawlings has dominated the news, sparking fears and anxiety that the old coup maker has similar plans. Taking swipes at the Kuffour government seems to be his main past time activity since he is unemployed. The question people are asking in secret is this – is he capable of another coup? This writer believes that the issues are far more complex, but no so destabilising. It is quite unusual for a head of state whose party has lost an election, to continue to hound the incumbent in the way that Jerry Rawlings continues to hound his successor, President John Agyekum Kuffour. But what is of concern to Ghanaians is the extent to which Rawlings’ constant outbursts posses a real threat to national security. To put it bluntly, does Rawlings constitute a present danger to the NPP government and the country? To answer this question requires a brief detour into the Rawlings record while in office. From the days of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council – AFRC (June – September 1979) to the Provisional National Defence Council (1982 – 2000), Rawlings has always presented himself as an ordinary person seeking to make life better for the ordinary Ghanaian. This is where most people were deceived into thinking that Rawlings differed from other past leaders in Ghanaian history. In the AFRC/PNDC eras, Rawlings presented himself as champion of the masses, as an ordinary person, one of the mmoborowa, by associating himself with the ordinary people and with radical political groups, youth leaders, workers, farmers, and anyone with a cause worth exploiting. But his own life style, which is completely out of this earth, speaks differently. He neither likes ordinary people, nor lives like them. Infact, he detests poor people. BUT, he has an aversion to exploiting the plight of poor people for his own inordinate ambitions. Rawlings is like a leech, sticking to the backside of ordinary people, exploiting their anxieties, their fears, their genuine problems, for his own goals. Let us go back to 1979 – 1981 when Rawlings had been discharged from the armed forces by the Hilla Limann administration. He (Rawlings) made the University of Ghana his main home. Conniving, plotting, scheming, cheating and screaming his way to the minds of unionised Legon workers, the TUC (Trades Union Congress- Ghana), students, and members of the June Four Movement (JFM). Indeed anyone who felt disaffected by the inability of the Hilla Limann administration to deal with mounting social and economic problems and the resulting hardships. The seeds of the December 31st coup and consequent events in Ghana, should be viewed from this angle. To what extent is Rawlings genuine in his attachment to popular causes? History will decide whether the Rawlings record is worth the paper it is written on. But as someone closely associated with Rawlings and the PNDC is the 1980s, I can deliver my own verdict. Contrary to what the foreign and local supporters of Rawlings would have us believe, the Rawlings record in Ghanaian politics is abysmal and indeed negative. As a leader, Rawlings sought to build a country based on brute force in which he brutalised anyone who disagreed with him. As the Secretary of Youth and Sports in 1982, I was at the receiving end of this brutality when he personally invaded my house and arrested friends and colleagues, no reason was given. Rawlings brutalised his own vice President, and numerous others in government. Under both the PNDC and NDC regimes, Rawlings spread the poison of dishonesty, deceit, corruption, dishonour and mistrust in government. Under him, the moral fabric of Ghana was destroyed beyond repair. Kuffour and the NPP inherited a country beholden to the IMF and the World Bank, who had for several years, destabilised Ghana under the deceitful notion of economic stability. Of course, the NPP is not complaining about that, they are only peeved that Rawlings stole their economic policies. For a person with such abysmal record, decency would have dictated that Rawlings, having lost the election, should respect the electoral right of Ghanaians and keep an arms length from intervening on every single issue. He should as mark of respect and decorum, give President Kuffour the respect he deserves as President. But never in Ghanaian history has this nation been treated to such a display of spite and thwarted ambitions cloaked altruistic concern for the poor and mmoborowa. Is it too much to ask Rawlings to give his successor an opportunity to try his hands at repairing some of the damage, even though we all know how humanly impossible a task that is. That has not happened. What is Rawlings after? In the minds of some young Ghanaians, there is a seductive but illusory notion that Rawlings the autocrat is better than Kuffour the liberal democrat. In some academic circles, the African ones included, the erratic, self serving leadership of Rawlings which resulted in several conflicts, and a state rife with patronage, corruption and incompetence and kalabule, is still preferable. To them, I say, you can have him. It is not difficult to imagine that in his own mind, Rawlings has ambitions of returning to power, with the masses once again hailing the Juniour Jesus (he refuses to hear the cry of Junior Judas). Rawlings is helped in this day-dreaming by his fellow travellers, those for whom power and affluence would have been a day dream, if they had not turned a revolutionary experiment into one gigantic national fraud and swindle. Another group helping Rawling are the African intellectuals and their cabal of Africa-American opportunists who continue to praise the Rawlings era. These people and their institutions are adept at trying to keep the Rawlings agenda alive, to what purpose, no one knows. However, we can be sure of one thing. That Rawlings will not rest until he has tried his destabilising tactics to discredit Kuffour as he did to the late President Hilla Limann. I am no sympathiser of the NPP but dare I say that Kuffour is proving, to be better at managing the neo-colonial economy better than Rawlings ever did. I can hear howls of protests at this. But I stand to correction. In terms of economic policy, there is hardly any difference between the two. The difference is only inn terms of personal integrity. Even here, I dare say President Kuffour is miles ahead. But most important of all, Rawlings refusal to accept the inevitable truth – that he no longer runs the show in Ghana is the main problem. Rawlings has not been able to wean himself form his toxic addiction to power and peoples adoration. But every show must end. So to what extent is Rawlings a threat to democracy and our stability as a nation? Not much. At best, and on his own, Rawlings is only an irritant. Ghana today is a far cry from 1981 when some of us were willing tools in the soiled and shaky hands of Rawlings and his tribal cabal. The Africa of today is quite different from that of 1979/1981. The global situation is radically different as well. Today, coups are frowned upon, at least by Ghanaians. I do not see a situation in which Ghanaians will hail a coup – they never did in the past, be it 24th February 1966 or 31st December 1981. I also do not believe that the “orange” and “velvet” revolutions of Eastern Europe can be so easily replicated in Ghana or Africa overnight. At any rate, most Ghanaians would like to give the NPP and Kuffour a chance to prove their case. However, he (Rawlings) posses a danger in one regard. Being the populist demagogue that he is, Rawlings has the tendency to hijack others peoples causes, exploit them, and rip these causes apart for his own selfish ends. Economic problems, ethnic tensions in the North, a restive youth population, Northern fears about Akan (Ashanti) domination, concerns about the rising cost of the 50th Anniversary celebrations, you name it. These represent a potent and toxic cocktail of grievances that Rawlings needs to serve his addiction, and to convince his foreign praise singers. Certainly, Rawlings would exploit all or any of these for his own ends, and in the process, destroy all hopes of the NDC making an electoral come-back. Without other people and their causes, without people fighting for him, Rawlings would be a naked emperor. He has neither the courage, nor the intellectual acumen to act on his own. He relies on raw passion, and people with grievances (real or imagined), to do his dirty work for him. In the PNDC era, dedicated soldiers like Major Courage Quarshigah (now Minister of Health), Captain Baba Awuni, and and Sgt Akata-Pore, among others who did his fighting for him. How did Rawlings reward his colleagues and friends who risked life and limb to save him during the AFRC and PNDC periods? The graveyards are littered with the bones of people who once stood by him, and thought he had honourable motives. It will take people of extraordinary naivety to do the same today. After all, where are all those young soldiers who fought to bring him to power in 1979 and 1981? Most of them ended up as victims of gruesome murders and summary executions (without trial). I can name several but this is not the place. How come he has fallen out with almost all those he worked with in the AFRC and the original PNDC eras? What does that say about him? None of this is new since I have detailed them in my book – “the Struggle for Popular Power.” History, it is said, repeats itself, first as a farce, and second as a tragedy. We have had enough tragic moments in Ghana’s history. It is time to jettison the false prophet – Rawlings and his clique of nation wreckers, and begin to enjoy the uninterrupted peace and dawn broadcasts favoured by coup makers. Ghanaians want to live in peace within the Parliamentary democratic system (with all its weaknesses) we have chosen as a people. Ghanaians want to live enjoy the global respect that Nkrumah acquired for us, and to let our children, women and youth live in peace and harmony with one another. Is that too much to ask? Conflict in the North, and other destabilising factors can only lead to the sort of confusion which demagogues like Rawlings thrive on. Ghana may not be a perfect democracy, but the alternative Rawlings offers could be worse. But before you despair, and think that all is lost, let me say that these are comic moments. There is a saying that every market has a madman. So perhaps, this is Ghana’s moment. Who can begrudge us?
This article first appeared in the Ghanaian Oracle, May 2007
Zaya Yeebo© theghanaianoracle
